Daredevil and Elektra: The Red Victory Saga
by Assassin For Hire
Summary: 31703: TWO NEW CHAPS UP. The romantic struggle between Daredevil and Elektra continues. Reviews are appreciated. :)
1. A Word From The Authors

**THE RED VICTORY SAGA**

The romantic struggle between Daredevil and Elektra

written by Kabanas and FataMorgana

  
Elektra and Daredevil are copyright Marvel but we promise, Stan, we're being good to them.  
The following chapters in this saga were written in a chat room environment, so please note --  
the perspectives frequently shift between the Devil and the Assassin. What you are reading are  
raw transcripts of unrehearsed writing sessions between Jess and I. Excuse the spontaneous mess.

Continuity: The media's recent exposure of Matt Murdock, attorney-at-law, as Daredevil.  
We would appreciate reviews, so please feed us nutritious comments. Thank you!

Onward to the story....


	2. A Mind Made Up

THE RED VICTORY SAGA

Issue #1 - "A Mind Made Up"

Elektra by Kabanas - Daredevil by FataMorgana

We apologize for the choppy and random structure of this issue. It was our first. :)  
Your reviews would be greatly appreciated. Feedback is important to us.

A few weeks before Christmas. Midnight over Hell's Kitchen.

ELEKTRA's eyes were on the shadowy man in red. Sonofabitch... It never failed to amaze her how well he could balance himself on the thinnest of platforms. Him. Who else. Daredevil. Who the hell else could run on electric wire without losing his balance? It was hard keeping up with him, but Matt was not the only acrobatic presence on the scene. She was here to kill the crook he was fighting. Murdock was there to arrest him. Elektra disappeared from the rooftop in a flutter of silk, scaling down to the rain-slick, cobblestone grounds in a matter of moments. Don't test me today, Murdock.

DAREDEVIL neatly dodged a roundhouse unmistakably aimed at his head. And when he ducked, he caught a scent. Don't test me today, Elektra.

ELEKTRA An arrow whistled through the air at breakneck speed. More like a sai, actually -- well placed and on target. It impaled Daredevil's attacker onto the wooden shipping crate behind him. Elektra was now $10,000 richer. Chump change, but sometimes the thrill of the kill was enough to inspire her....

ELEKTRA was usually not the type to introduce her presence, but... "You look surprised to see me."

DAREDEVIL offered a sigh, his "line of sight" drifting towards where he could hear each individual drop of blood leak from the baddie hitting the wooden dock. His jawline clenched in consternation. "Why am I not, then. I shouldn't insult your aim, but that wasn't meant for me, was it?"

ELEKTRA approached quietly, her mission accomplished. The smart-alec attitude was quickly dropped - it wasn't really her cup of tea. Besides, she hasn't touched him in years... That'd remain so tonight... "Give me a reason why the next one should miss. I have another one of those, Matt..." She was close enough to smell him. Hmm. Her voice lowered. "Heard of you in the papers. Thought I'd say...not like you to pull out." Elektra pulled her bloodstained sai off the corpse. Her target crumpled to the wet concrete. Why, she wondered, was she even talking to him?

DAREDEVIL folded his arms, offering what really ought to have been a piercing glare at the Greek woman formerly known as his lover. "Because you haven't used it yet." There was no arrogance in his answer - he was stating a fact. Elektra didn't make small talk on business outings. "There's no future in it," Matt added, following the sound of her footsteps.

ELEKTRA studied him carefully... In the blink of an eye, she had switched to a side stance and sent a toned leg at his head, the speed of her kick equaling lightning.

DAREDEVIL avoided her attack with a speed that matched hers. He resurfaced with an accusatory stare for the ninja.

ELEKTRA An arrogant smirk spread across her features, despite herself. "I'd say there's still a future left in that....." Elektra grew serious. "You're insane. You're letting the media influence who you are."

DAREDEVIL drew a perturbed expression. "I'm -not-, actually." He spoke slowly, enunciating each word as if that ought to be the final word on the subject. But then, he was talking to Elektra here. She couldn't be bothered with notions like "leaving things be".

ELEKTRA stood her ground, eyeing his lips which were set in a stony expression. There was once a time when he never cared to frown at her like that... "Take off your mask," she instructed. "I want you to look at me."

DAREDEVIL If anything could be heard from between the grinding of teeth it was: "Everyone's a comedian." But he took off his mask anyway. "I'm trusting there's no media around," Matt continued in a rather self-effacing manner.

ELEKTRA The sai tips teasingly tapping at the curves of his jaws should feel cold. It was unlike her to get so close to him like this, but she had understood the urgency in Black Widow's phone call and took it upon herself to play savior. This was not the Matt Murdock she remembered. The one she knew never gave up. Over anything. Not even when a truckload of radioactive waste took away his goddamn sight. She let him know that. "Listen to me carefully... I don't make house visits here, Matt, so use this time wisely..." Her voice was in itself an aphrodisiac. "What's wrong?"

DAREDEVIL's expression was set in stone. Before she could do anything about it, he had his hands around her wrists, lowering them away from his face. It was a tempting thought to just kiss her and tell her to butt out. Couldn't make himself do it, though. Well...the butting out part, anyhow. Staring intently at where he knew her face to be, he sighed and mentally rejected the quip that was practically out of his mouth. "It's complicated. One of those things that shouldn't be committed to the spoken word because it makes more sense when it's only you thinking about it."

ELEKTRA had but one thing to say to that. "Then why are you still in that uniform? Taking it upon yourself to deal out justice even when it's no longer your business? I've never known you to be a hypocrite." His words were familiar. He may not have remembered, but she did. Years ago, he had told her that exact same thing the very afternoon she saw her father's dead body wheeled away in a cadaver bag. He had told her then that things would only complicate themselves if she let it.

ELEKTRA's hands retreated away from his touch, her footsteps following soon thereafter. She slinked back. "Why are you afraid of the truth? You ARE Daredevil."

DAREDEVIL stared hard in the direction her voice issued from before an almost inhuman feat saw him perched atop a set of crates, about to dismiss her presence. "Not anymore, Elektra."

ELEKTRA froze in her tracks. She was utterly unimpressed. Irate, perhaps. "I never thought I'd say this, but you disappoint me. Quit, if you're tired of the game. Quit, if you've stopped giving a damn about this city. Quit, if you're no longer the same Matt Murdock I remember. But do your fanboys a favor and take a good, hard look at yourself. You can't escape the truth." And with that, Elektra dropped her concern for him and disappeared back into the night. It would be the last time she'd lecture him.

DAREDEVIL merely heaved a sigh into the breeze that came in over the river. "Women."

Will the blind lawyer be seeing any more of Lady Red? But of course... ;)


	3. Devil In The Night

THE RED VICTORY SAGA

Issue #2 - "Devil In The Night"

Elektra by Kabanas - Daredevil by FataMorgana

Elektra's hotel. An hour later.

ELEKTRA Manhattan. Night. Another hotel room. The tenth one she'd stayed in this month. She had occupied the Sheraton for two days now. That was longer than she usually planned on staying in these places. Mrs. Fallone, as she was known in the guest list, was currently enjoying a hot shower, her mostly red clothing scattered about the bathroom floor and past the opened door that led to her golden suite. Her real name: Elektra. Not Elektra Natchios. Not "Baby". Just Elektra. She'd dropped her last name when her father passed, and she only responded to the latter with a sai through one's eyeball. The shower was running. Elektra lay against the tiles, letting the water flow down over her raven hair, unmoving. Talking to Matt Murdock always did tax her reserve. 

DAREDEVIL Manhattan. Night. Another ledge outside another hotel room. Did she really think he'd given up caring about -everything-? Not everything, El. The weight of the shower steam outside her hotel room was busy trying to draw him inside. Truth be told, what Elektra had said to him the other night would have affected him coming from anyone. It affected him more that it came from her. That was why he was here. Moving to the windowsill, Daredevil slid inside with impressive agility. He made sure to set himself in plain sight. She might have been in the shower, but he didn't doubt she had a weapon handy. If she didn't...well, he knew her to be good at improvisation.

ELEKTRA opened her eyes. There was movement outside. Not so much noises as shadows. Elektra knew of only one person who would dare approach her hideout. She was invisible to the world otherwise. The showerhead was turned off and Elektra faced her visitor through the steaming glass, her forehead still leaned against the wall. "What do you want." 

DAREDEVIL spoke frankly. "To tell you you're right." How often were those words going to come out of Matt Murdock's mouth, particularly to her?

ELEKTRA struggled to hear his voice over the French CD that softly played in her den. Not another word was uttered. She'd ignore him, or would try to. Maybe he'd take a hint and see himself out. Peeking an arm through the glass door, she reached for a plush towel and wrapped herself inside it. The air outside the shower was frigid. She dressed quickly, baring whatever she wanted as she replaced the shirt on the floor back on her body. It was his fault if he stood before the doorway. When Elektra stepped into the bedroom, she was in the middle of tugging on her favorite pair of jeans. The look on Matt's face was precious, but she didn't indulge in it. She plain -hated- being interrupted from R&R. "Coffee?" she asked. 

DAREDEVIL "That distinctly sounded more like 'leave' to me," Matt sobered. "No, thanks." Even if he couldn't see what she was up to, he could hear it, and briefly thought what a sadist she could be. For that matter, he inched back towards the windowsill with the impression she wasn't willing to let him talk. 

ELEKTRA kept her back to him, calmly pouring herself a cup of French roast. She took her first sip. Coffee was disgusting, especially in this hotel, but it helped to clear her sinuses. She'd complain to the front desk later. Elektra listened to the sounds of the city outside. He still wasn't gone. Some people you could just -feel-. No sorcery involved. "Where's 'home' for you, Matt?" The words came out of her mouth unchecked. You're goddamn right she's irritated. He always did this. Love her, snub her, leave her. Perhaps he ought to just make up his mind. A pity that, while she had shed her weaknesses these past four years, he hasn't. Still the same, insecure lawyer. Where was 'home' going to be for him, if he put away the costume? 

DAREDEVIL"Wherever there's injustice to be defeated," he answered nobly before letting out a bitter laugh at the thought. He thought about sitting down somewhere, but she really was giving off a rather irate vibe. Should have known better than to tail her here. Glutton for god-damned punishment. 

ELEKTRA Bastard, she thought. Why don't you try reading my -heart- and not my -face- for a change. These repetitive arguments were making her sick to her stomach -- and it had only been her second night back in town. Still, their last parting a few months ago ended bitterly. And so did the conversation before that. And the one before that. There really was no helping it, was there? Elektra held the mug close to her face, inhaling the strong perfume of her drink. She wanted so badly to throw the heavy thing at him. She wouldn't, not with his back turned anyway. As much as she hated these cryptic meetings, she always respected him. He honored her... The thought softened El's attitude. And something else inside of her... The wind shifted outside. It began pouring out. Lightly. But the rain was not enough to disguise the simple sounds of a coffee mug being replaced back on the counter, or the sound of clothing being peeled off skin... Elektra's shirt dropped to the carpet. So did her jeans. She highly doubted Matt would be making an exit through the window any time soon.

ELEKTRA sounded uncertain about what she was doing. "You hate me for it, but it's true. Home is where the -heart- is, Matt. Just listen."

DAREDEVIL felt the air pressure shift long before she did. Her silence unnerved him, despite the fact that silence was Elektra's native tongue. He was suddenly rooted to the spot as the silence was broken. He could hear her breathing, her heartbeat, her very presence. Maybe she could save him from himself. When the rain began to pour outside, he felt it as if a tension had broken, and as the power shorted over this part of Manhattan, he went to her... 

THE END

Sorry, kids, but here we're inserting a tastefully falling black curtain... :  



	4. Before The Villain

THE RED VICTORY SAGA

Issue #3 - "Before The Villain"

Elektra by Kabanas - Daredevil by FataMorgana

A trip down memory lane. Matt Murdock's apartment. Nine years ago...

ELEKTRA sat against the mahogany backboard of the bed, undressed. It was warm outside, a typical muggy summer night in Hell's Kitchen. She eyed the shadows on the wall in front of her and memorized the layout of his bedroom. His nice work table. His potted plants. She was comfortable. Tired. Hair fell across her eyes onto her tan brow which still had nuances of sweat glistening over it. She listened to him breathing quietly on the bed below her. He lay on his back, between her legs. They had made love for an hour and would go on to spend the rest of the night talking until they fell asleep. She never let him know how much she loved listening to him, but Matt knew he made Elektra happy in so many more ways. There weren't many people in her life who had been close to her. He'd been the first to figure her out, really. The first to listen. The first to smile without asking for a smile in return. And as far as their relationship went, Matt had been the first she'd been in bed with, too. He had been special to her then. So very, very special... "What are you thinking about, Matt?" Her voice was unearthly quiet. She usually never spoke above a murmur. But she wanted to know what was dancing inside of his head, and if she was in there at all. 

DAREDEVIL stared up at her, as if by sheer force of will he might be able to make out something of her. Anything. Matt sighed when he couldn't, and settled for reaching up a hand to slide over her jaw in reverence. "I'm thinking I wish I could see what you look like right now." He'd traced her features a hundred times, knew the structure of her high cheekbones. But just once, he wanted to look up and see her watching him. 

ELEKTRA was watching him. She didn't need to bow her head in order to catch his latches lifting in her direction. Though he had welting scars where his eyes once were, Matt's lashes were remarkably spared from the accident he encountered in his youth. They were still thick, and beautiful. Eyes of Christ, she thinks. He is her despairing saint. Her hands, too, remained where they were - atop his head, where her nails soothingly gathered his dirty blonde locks in idle fashion. She said nothing for a while, merely shifted her gaze to the moon. She had to remind herself that he'd seen the moonlight before, in his earlier life. It made her feel less sorry for him. One of his hands were collected and placed over her heart. The beats told him everything. "Makes two of us," Elektra replied quietly. 

DAREDEVIL smiled lightly, half-smiling. "You're not that vain." He loved semantics. If he couldn't be observant in the traditional manner, he was always one to catch an opportunity to point out a verbal observation. He found himself entranced by the warmth at the back of his neck where it rested against her radiating skin. 

ELEKTRA smiled faintly. She caught a corner of her unstained lips lifting on her reflection across the room, on his étagère mirror. Its very existence inwardly amused her every time she saw it. She considered her lover's handicap, then her thoughts drifted elsewhere. She spied something else across the room - the endearing sight of two vibranium sais lying beside a sheathed billy club on the table. "Shut up. I'm serious..." Her fingers lowered unconsciously down his head and lightly began playing with his ears. They had been red ever since the two of them had slunk into bed. One of his more adorable features... She eyed the rest of him - lightly decorated with a thin bed sheet, his feet poking out beneath. Would he have minded it much if he knew just how much she stared at him sometimes? "Why do you keep a mirror...?" The woman was about as inquisitive as she was random. 

DAREDEVIL thought about that for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. Staring being a relative term. His world was pitch-black. He idly wondered if he'd ever just forget what black looked like and see emptiness. "If I told you...." He caught a hand and kissed it -- "You wouldn't have anything to wonder about whenever you're here." 

ELEKTRA was insistent. "I think of you," she replied quietly. "You're just too busy being a jerk to notice..." Her words were so tight and controlled that anyone else would have thought her serious. 

DAREDEVIL kept up his defenses. "Sue me." Same manner, fired right back at her. 

ELEKTRA held back her laughter, even her smile. She punished him momentarily for the quip, shifting her leg away so her frame was suddenly beside him instead of above. Regardless, they were no longer touching for the moment. Elektra lay on her stomach and propped herself up on her forearms, studying his face. She encountered so many faces every day and yet Matt's was her absolute favorite. It seemed to change so often when she examined it. He had a nice brow. Why she thought that sexy, she couldn't explain. Matt's body was high on her list of 'mysterious things to decode'. "I should..." she began, but the urge to rest her head against his bare shoulder grew strong. She held back on it, though. "Love you." Those words escaped her lips about an average once a month... 

DAREDEVIL's mind jumped to attention at that. "Love you, El." He wanted to tell her more, but couldn't stand the thought of her replying in kind because she felt she had to. It wouldn't be fair. 

ELEKTRA watched Matt's lips closely, as though every word he uttered was sacred because they were meant only for her. Their honesty hurt because of that. Elektra had never felt more loved by anyone. She had never been given anything so special. Matt's simple presence humbled her. There were elements of her father in him. That was only part of her fascination, but she had honestly never met so extraordinary a human being. His honesty. His integrity. Matt had intrigued her from their first meeting on campus, and he continued to do so ever since. Still, he unnerved her somewhat. The thought of getting too close to him challenged her fears. Matt encouraged her to expose herself and she...simply couldn't bring herself to. Not in the way he wanted her to open up to him... Yet she knew that no one else in her future could ever be as capable of reading into her heart quite as thoroughly as Matt Murdock can... Elektra said nothing further and hugged herself tightly to the man beside her, burying her tired head against the hollow of his neck. She was 20 years old and naive, sullen, had not yet tasted the life of villainy...but she was loved, embraced, and she fell asleep on the man who was responsible for giving her all those things.

THE END.

We hope you enjoyed that little schmaltzy piece...'cause things are about to get uglier. :)

Disclaimer: Based on the opening sequence of Daredevil #37. We're also Ondaatje fans.


	5. The Road To Redemption

THE RED VICTORY SAGA 

Issue #4 - "The Road To Redemption"

Elektra by Kabanas - Daredevil by FataMorgana

We continue our saga in the middle of: Elektra #20...Elektra has renounced her old ways, gained a new sensei, and a new understanding of life; Daredevil: Out (trade paperback)...Matt Murdock deals with the pressures of a defamation lawsuit against local tabloids accusing him of being Daredevil...

Hell's Kitchen. Present Day.

ELEKTRA There were footsteps outside, hushed voices. Just homeless passer-bys dragging cardboard around on concrete and discussing where to sleep the night. It was enough to disturb her slumber. Elektra awoke and for a minute, she thought she was still in east Los Angeles, training with sensei Drake. She could still smell the sand in the children's playground where she had spent her past few days coming to terms with her humane side... It surprised Elektra most of all that she even still had one. The decision to take that flight across the country back to New York was her decision alone, but sensei had been very supportive. Elektra was ready to be released back into society. Blinking wide awake, the woman realized where she really was: an inexpensive hostel on the edge of Hell's Kitchen -- one of the many little buildings she had passed as a girl growing up within these parts. She remembered why she had taken that flight now. The first thing on Elektra's mind the moment she regained enlightenment was to find someone. Find -him-. Talk to him. Tell him about sensei Drake and what she saw out of the plane window when it began raining over the city, about how the Hand tried to find her, about the crippled Jeremy Locke who set her free.... Elektra peeled the thin cover off her frame and began to dress. She had scaled the rooftops in a matter of minutes. 

DAREDEVIL Meditation was a worthless pastime when there was no possible way to block out the sounds of Hell's Kitchen. There were times when the casually-dressed figure on the rooftop wished to be able to transfer the silence he saw into silence he could hear. Just to meditate in peace without worrying about the escalating domestic violence four blocks down, or the old woman heaving a death rattle all alone in her tiny apartment across the street. Tonight was an exercise in patience - the Man Without Fear would be found nowhere, even though there was crime to be fought and justice to be served. Matthew Murdock was laying low for a while. There was practically a reporter on every corner, waiting to snap a picture of Daredevil in action for the tabloids. Ready to tie Daredevil by some abstract thread of evidence to his everyday persona. He wasn't used to being in a different seat in the courtroom. Lawsuits were a pain in the ass, he'd decided. It was stressing him - putting tension in the chisled shoulder muscles that hunched idly in dismay on the ledge overlooking the Kitchen. 

ELEKTRA The last time she had seen him had been before Christmas, at the height of his exposure in the papers. When she came to him then, he was irritable and depressed -- a rambling exoskeleton of the confident man she once knew. He had lost it on that rooftop, right before her very eyes. The sight was almost dishonorable. She didn't recognize him. But all the same, Elektra was a different person that night herself. For although she weaved through the canopy of Hell's Kitchen with the same dexterity and control of her old body, she pursued her location tonight with a different mindset. -Wisdom- was the Rosetta Stone that her corrupt being had been missing all this time, and after having shamefully lost to Drake, Elektra gained enlightenment and finally earned the right to shoulder the responsibility. A good fighter, Drake taught her, was not empty of a soul. In fact, the most seasoned fighter was one who fought with -heart-. Without this wisdom, Elektra would have stalked after this man under different intentions. She would have never, three months ago, come to him with an ulterior motive other than to kill him for a nominal fee. Tonight, Elektra would come to him no longer the soulless beast that he knew. She was a flutter of scarlet silk, moving as one with the wind, red tabi boots propelling her over the roof edge of his apartment. She moved without noise, a shadow in its purest form - fleeting, sudden, but constant. She made no sound, but watched Matt Murdock gaze over a cityscape that he could not envision. 

DAREDEVIL It was absurd to think he didn't know she was there. No meditation, no matter how deeply he concentrated on exacting some sort of peace from the night's noises, would see him ignorant of her presence. The slightest ruffle of silk caught his attention. A hint of incense traipsed across the wind. Her very silence made a sound. There was no one else who had the same sort of presence. Elektra. His own heart thumped wildly. He had no weapons about him. Was she here to try once more at killing him? How much was his head on the market for these days? Those burdened shoulders slumped again. "I'm not fighting you tonight, El." Matt said tiredly, her presence filling him with elation and pain at the same time.

ELEKTRA's gaze lingered a moment, as though insulted by this greeting. There was once a time when he never spoke to her in so indifferent a tone, a time when they met on this rooftop absent of weapons. But that was the past, and they had mutually decided over time that the past was a -mistake-. Elektra exhaled inwardly, calm though falsely pretending that she was expecting such callousness from him. It was deserved, and for tonight, it was acceptable. After all, she had ruined his life irrevocably when she left his side, never to return unless to pose as a threat to his existence. Straightening in response, the assassin's everpresent daggers were twirled away from her side, tossed, and replaced beneath the sheer sachet belted around her waist in one fluid move. The silk seemed accepting of their weight, accustomed to the many times that Elektra had carried them there while she stood at ease. Her face, though already a mere shadow to him, was unreadable. Much like her heart, which was a steady lump inside a stale figure. Elektra wanted to present herself to him unarmed. "Nice to see you too, Matt." It was the most she had said to him in months. She didn't mean to sound so sarcastic, but old habits die hard... "For someone who wishes to disappear from the media, you are easy to find." She took the first step forward, an uncharacteristic move. 

DAREDEVIL "Easy to find, if you know where I live. I'm not trying to -disappear-." Something in the way he said that last word was loaded. With hurt. With the bitterness of someone who'd been disappeared on too many times in the past. Someone who'd built a wall so it wouldn't ache so much. A frown drew in his brow as he heard her replace her weapons. An unusual beat to her pulse. She stepped towards him, and he glanced over his shoulder as the sound of her steps produced an image for him. She looked the way he remembered her looking. She said more in those two sentences than she had on several visits combined. Something about Elektra had changed. Shifting off the balcony he leaned against, his body followed the cant of his head to face her. He felt unprepared for her visit, not clad in his costume. Jeans and a fitted sweater were all Matt donned tonight. He felt unbalanced. 

ELEKTRA "I heard about Fisk," she continued, undeterred by the lidless milky orbs that were probing the darkness for her figure. "Death comes in many forms, but not as a frequent visitor to the Kingpin. He would not have survived this long were he not the very centerpiece of the pyramid you call home." She nodded indistinctly at Hell's Kitchen. "His legacy alone is too strong to be buried." Elektra abruptly stopped her Confucian monologue, leaving it for Matt to deduce that she believed the Kingpin was still alive. She had read the tabloids' point of view on what had happened to Fisk, but aside from finding amusement from the bloated images of the Kingpin, the ronin couldn't find any credibility to the 'death'. The Kingpin was still alive and out there. Somewhere. "He didn't even make the Obituaries," Elektra continued quietly, as though offering the man some hope. Matt was so easy to talk to out of costume, when he was grieving, did he know that? Elektra was aware that Daredevil had formed an unusual kinship with his archenemy -- the most prominent mob boss on the east coast -- over time, and she didn't put guilt past Matt. God, if anything, he was probably thinking about how he could have prevented Kingpin's death before she got here. Dark lashes fell sleepily under his scrutiny. "You can stop staring," she said suddenly. Even with all the life-altercating training Drake had provided her, Elektra still had a hard time being watched. It felt uncomfortable having his eyes on her again after so long. "I have something to speak with you about."

DAREDEVIL folded his arms, the practice of patience in effect. He'd wait through her maze of words, find out what she really wanted to say. He'd already formed his opinion that Wilson Fisk wasn't dead. She'd know that. Despite what someone had told him, hope was not lost to him merely because he feared nothing. Still, as perturbed as Matt visibly was, hearing Elektra say more than two words to him tugged his memory back to times when they actually spoke to each other. When an idle conversation about absolutely nothing could occupy their hours, and her laughter wasn't sparse. Out of some habit Matt had forgotten he observed, he glanced away from her in deference to her request. It bothered him that he still cared to obey her requests so perfectly. The goddess had spoken, and Matthew complied. He nodded once and reached for his stick, pushing off the ledge to walk towards the entrance to his apartment. He never needed to invite her to follow. 

ELEKTRA trailed wordlessly after him, though the steps leading to his humble abode had grown alien and unfamiliar to her. When she was revived from the dead nearly a decade ago, Elektra's being was tainted with evil magic. It stripped away her old passions and all her old memories. She eventually lost all desire to be around Matt's living space, much less be around him. Elektra spent the next few years disappearing in the blink of an eye, playing contract executioner for the highest bidder. And they never spoke again. Until recently. Elektra watched silently as the lawyer took to his old routines - the careful way he listened for the padlocks to snap, the smooth transition of his movements. It was a fascinating thing to be an audience of. Although the assassin was no mute, the concept of talking irritated her. She disliked saying too much than was necessary. Conversation was about patience. Timing. Elektra kept her sullen absorption until they were deep inside his quarters. The apartment was near pitch-black. No lamp in sight. Were it not for the moon and the woman's keen eyesight both, she would have easily stumbled in the darkness.

ELEKTRA lighted upon the edge of his leather sofa, basking in the rays of the moon, hands on her lap. An assassin's meditative repose. She kept her attention forward, not blinking once, though Matt was nowhere in sight. "I died in your arms once," Elektra began, sinking into the memories that slowly began flooding her mind. There was no place left on earth for her to feel comfortable in, but she knew this was a safe space. She could talk freely. "And though you see a woman in your midst now, I was never the same after that night. We both know this." Elektra waited for Matt to seat himself in her line of sight before continuing. "The truth is, I have not known life in the way you have all these years, in the way everyone else has. Every time I kill--" The assassin's eyes fluttered to her weapons. "I know exactly how it feels to die. The Hand paid me a visit recently. They made me an offer I was near close to accepting. They wanted to bring me back to the fold, wanted me to turn back to that life of killing. But then I met a woman named Drake who challenged me in battle and won. She WON, Matt. Do you understand how many times I have lost a fight since that night I left you? Not once. This woman, Drake, she knew about me. She knew everything -about- me: my strengths, my weaknesses... She saw right through me... And for the first time since that night, I felt naked and exposed. Drake helped me to see that I was sick. That I knew more about the art of killing than I knew myself. You would have liked her, Matt. She made me want to start over. I laid down my weapons and showed her my empty hand. She assured me I still had a chance to put my sins behind me and turn away from my crimes. We talked. And for hours on end, I listened. What she spoke of changed something in me, the way she had taken away my anger when I found myself at her feet, defeated." 

ELEKTRA Without notice, the calm woman suddenly began distressing over her dark past. "Oh God," Elektra continued remorsefully, "I killed so many..." She pitied Matt then somewhat - she was breaking down to him the way he had done to her earlier that winter. The only difference was, she had turned her back then and left him. Elektra suddenly grew conscious about how she must have sounded at that moment. The assassin, it seemed, had grown a -conscience- last time they met. It embarrassed her, like a child growing shameful after getting caught stealing. "I have been dead all these years, Matt. And not in the way you think. I have been DEAD. I do not know how to live anymore. I have murdered close to -one hundred and thirty- people. I want to know if there is anything left for a monster like me. I know that is all I am. A walking executioner. I want to know if I have anyone left. I want to know why Drake or Jeremy Locke refused to kill me when they had the chance. I want to know why they let me go. I want to know why I cannot DIE. I am READY to. I have -tried- to end my life. How do you do it, Matt? How do you separate yourself from being the good guy and the bad guy? How am I supposed to live with my sins?" And then, just when it seemed that Elektra's old rage had once again resurfaced, the weary assassin willed her heart to slow and fell silent. 

DAREDEVIL never actually sat down in her line of sight. He was more comfortable pacing slowly back and forth in front of her. That is, until it dawned upon him that perhaps she found that unnerving. And even then, he sat down not across from her, but beside her. And leaned back against the sofa, an ankle resting over his knee. His casual pose was deceiving in that one may think his attention was elsewhere. In reality, Matt could not have been more attentive to her words. He wished he could see every nuance of pain in her expression when she took to spilling everything that had happened to her, so he could know that the angst he heard in her voice was real. A hand posed over his mouth, covering the frown that settled there. He was right - Elektra had changed. For the better, it seemed, if she could manage to cope with her demons. Like her, he saw his own desperation from that night mirrored in the way she was baring all of these things to him. Elektra's voice was hypnotic to someone who had scarcely heard this many words from her in years. He was compelled to listen. 

DAREDEVIL As she spoke, he remembered the night she'd died. Like it was yesterday. She was so cold in his arms. He remembered the night he'd found out she was alive again. It had broken his heart to see what she'd become, to know that the darkness in her heart had consumed the woman his heart belonged to. He remembered the night not long ago when he'd needed her to stay with him so badly, and she'd left. And, after all that, he remembered the night he'd fallen in love with her. In remembering this, there was no way Matt could conceive of turning his back on her now. He'd never known Elektra to be so pained about anything - this was the truth she spoke. If Elektra had died that night so long ago, then she was now reborn. She was admitting things that were putting her that much closer to coping. Matt remained silent for a long time, mulling over her words before shifting forward. He rested his elbows on his thighs and glanced sidelong, if only to be that much closer to her. Matt wondered if she'd let him touch her - she hadn't for a long time. Alas, risking death, dismemberment and a host of other unpleasant repercussions, he reached over and collected one of her hands. It was his way of telling her that, even now, she did have someone left. "You do exactly that, El," Matt finally spoke, quietly and reasonably. "You live with them. You keep them inside you, and you fight against them. Redemption doesn't come without work. It's not easy. But nothing worth having comes easily." He stopped rather abruptly, not wanting to sound patronizing to her. "I know you can." 

ELEKTRA was suddenly at a loss for words. His touch was surprising in that it unsettled feelings within her that she thought had been long suppressed by her evil transfiguration. The intimacy of hand-holding was not a luxury she could afford with her type of lifestyle. She slit wrists, broke fingers, snapped tendons... These things were anything but romantic. Slowly, uncomfortably, and with some regret, Elektra withdrew her hand. The nearness alone of his presence was different enough of a scenario change in and of itself. After having forsaken any semblance of romance for such a long period of time, Elektra needed some distance right now. Being far was what made her comfortable... It was what she was good at... "Sorry, I--" she tried after a moment, addressing the awkward silence between them but failing to explain why she was apologizing. Assassins were not ones to mince words or go out of their way to explain themselves. So she shook off the apology.

ELEKTRA's gaze fell back down upon her hand, studying the unsightly bruises on her wrists and knuckles that were complimentary to her sai usage. "I have spent...a week...pondering my fate. A week is nothing compared to the lifetime of people that I've--" Elektra paused again and swallowed, collecting her composure. Crying was not a reaction ingrained into her system, but the gravity of the subject was not something she discussed every weekend over coffee. She was beginning to wonder, in fact, just why in the hell she was here. The woman swept ebony locks behind an ear, freeing her olive profile. Another uncharacteristic gesture. "What is happening to me, Matt?..." It was the first time in nine years she had spoken to him in so tender a manner. If Elektra had closed her eyes then, it would have been easy to pretend that they were back in his old dorm room, and she was still asleep in his arms. But the woman dried her eyes and kept them wide open. "I think you might be alone in thinking that," she continued. "Or it has been far too long since we have talked." She chuckled -- a fake, uneven sound. "I do not know if it is simply that easy for me anymore." 

DAREDEVIL He should have known trying to offer the simple comfort of contact would have been shunned. It worried him then that the only thing she might still be interested in being close to were her targets. "I don't think I am. Or are you just looking to excuse your actions by fooling yourself into believing you can't." It wasn't the most reassuring thing he could have said, but Matt had no interest in sheltering her from the very real threat of sinking back into her self-pity. "You wouldn't have come here and told me all this if you had absolutely no intention of leaving that behind you." Retreating from her side, he traversed the dark apartment without a single misstep. "Feeling sorry for yourself is the first step back onto the path you say you've abandoned."

ELEKTRA chewed over his words with irritation then stood carefully, defiantly shielding her 'obvious' frustration from him and his keen senses. Elektra was one of the few human beings he knew who had this uncanny ability to disguise her feelings. And it was because she didn't want Matt getting any closer tonight. The option of leaving him once more seemed very seductive all of a sudden, in fact. The temptation grew stronger when her line of sight fell upon his double doors. There he was in a separate corner of the room, far away from her. There she stood. There was the exit, easily accessible... Goddamn lawyer, Elektra huffed inwardly. But Matthew was right. He always was. There was no outsmarting him or outarguing him ever. Not here. Not in the courtroom. It was what made him uniquely Daredevil. And annoying as hell. Elektra clamped her mouth shut and burned a hole through the man's figure with her gaze, consumed with impatience. For someone who was practically invincible to men's leering, or even their machismo, there were times when Matt's self-righteousness had gotten the best of her. Kind of like now. "I guess we will see, won't we." It meant she needed more time to think about this. There was a hint of disappointment in the woman's voice that unfairly accused him of not caring about her. But, Elektra realized belatedly, wasn't she guilty of overstepping the no-trespass, no-involvement boundaries they had etched for each other over these years? Daredevil was no ally of hers anymore. Hardly an acquaintance. She came to him when asked, but never to play his therapist. In return, he didn't get in her way. Even if her profession went against every moral code in Matt's law books, they still held a fair amount of respect for each other. Matt was her first. To him, she had no equal. Not now. Perhaps not ever. But Elektra never had a chance to fully realize this. The assassin retracted her attention away from him and moved for the door. Something stopped her, just before she disappeared out of his space. She did say she had changed, didn't she? "Thank you for listening tonight," Elektra intoned over her shoulder, unfeelingly, barely above a whisper. "I'd like to see you again." Her exit was swift and dignified, befitting of her assassin trade. She had no doubt Matt caught her every word.

Daredevil needs to cope with Elektra's news and return...  
of all the people in Hell's Kitchen, who does he turn to?

Find out in CHAPTER FIVE: "Chaos Resounding"!

Disclaimer: Story copyright 2003 Krista Cabanas and Jessica Duncan. Daredevil/Echo copyright Marvel.


	6. Chaos Resounding

THE RED VICTORY SAGA

Issue #5 - "Chaos Resounding"

Kabanas as Daredevil - FataMorgana as Echo

Guest-starring one of Daredevil's old flames... Echo!

The following night...

ECHO "He was blind. I was deaf. It didn't make a whit of difference. In fact, it removed the barriers that might have been between us. There were no social stigmas to tip-toe around because we both know what it's like to deal with something that puts us at serious disadvantages. I wish the fact that I'm deaf meant that I could block out the voice of my own conscience telling me how wrong I was to, pardon the pun, blindly believe Fisk when he said the Daredevil was responsible for my father's death. My conscience never shuts up." Maya Lopez sighed, setting down the cup of coffee that had grown cold between her tanned hands as she spoke. Nothing greeted her in the form of a response other than the static of silence. Vibrations. Not that she'd been expecting anything. Amber eyes flicked upwards, inspected the night sky. Uncurling her legs to dangle them over the precipice of the 8-story building her penthouse sprawled across, Maya smiled. She was her own best form of therapy. She could say whatever she wanted, never hear herself speak, and get things off her chest to the empty, starless sky. A shiver ran over her back as she stared down at the alley far below. Nothing fascinating. A couple's giddy laughter on the street reminded her of Matt tonight. Sometimes he stayed out of her thoughts for days at a time, some nights five minutes of blank though was a luxury. Brushing the raven hair out of her face that the wind whipped there, Maya leaned back to lay against the cool cement of the ledge. Tonight was one of those nights. 

DAREDEVIL Matt Murdock's curse lay not in his visual handicap but in the women who entered his life and constantly defined his person. On that same token, Daredevil shared his fate. The hour was a late February evening, under a clear winter sky that he hadn't seen in close to fifteen years. He was warm in uniform - red kevlar, toasty boots, matching gloves, a hood that broke the cold from his eyes and kept the wind out of his ears. The tight jacket he wore was the only sense of close intimacy he had embraced these past few months. This was one of those nights where he was free to traverse the rooftops for the sheer pleasure of being airborne. This was one of those nights where he wanted to keep the hell away from lowlifes. He had been under tremendous pressure in his most recent case, which had entered its climax earlier that morning. For all the troubles on his mind, Matt was in the mood to lose himself to the night. Daredevil was in the mood to fly. 

DAREDEVIL A somersault saw the avenger's figure soaring sky-high past the brickwork of an old apartment building, the billy club strapped to his calf simultaneously whipped out in the middle of his execution. The wind rushing past his ears was deafening, but the sound had grown on him throughout the years he spent taking it in, and was therefore comforting. Rather like an affectionate old friend. Unlocked, the club whipped out its hooks extended thirty feet of cable, allowing the Devil to grapple from power line to power line as nothing more than an scarlet shadow. His momentum carried him from avenue to avenue, landing on concrete only to bounce back up the next second. In this manner, Daredevil glided throughout half of the city, until he suddenly arrived at a familiar location, the lofts of townies and borderline millionaires. Not some place he belonged. Not some place he would have visited were it not for a particular woman on his mind tonight. Why her, of all the women...?

ECHO "There's something addictive in wearing a costume and dancing through the shadows," Maya continued, speaking to the loaded air as if it were just someone she were having an idle conversation with. The night was a consummate listener. Never spoke back to her, save for it's rumbles now and then, which was nothing more than a passing truck below. Just listened. Shrugging deeply into the thick, luxurious cashmere sweater that graced her trim figure and matched the shade of her hair, Maya's eyes slid closed. In this self-inflicted darkness, she struggled to see some mental image of the imposing figure clad in scarlet. In the days after she'd met Matt Murdock, she'd done this same thing with her eyes open, hoping vainly that the shadow she stared into would send forth the Daredevil. When the fruitlessness of that particular effort saddened her, she turned to calling up her memories of him, in the darkness of closed eyes. His own territory. If she squeezed them closed tight enough, filtered out all the light, and pictured his crouched figure.... maybe one day it would be real. She could never -go- to -him-. Not after she'd played judge, jury and executioner to an innocent man. A good man.

DAREDEVIL wasn't amoral, for being a consummate practitioner of the law, he was forever conscious of his own actions. But all the same, Matt was nonetheless human. He was prone to the same mistakes as other men, was even victim to some of their weaknesses, even though his handicap had taught him how to rise above the status quo. For the moment, this was the only explanation he could come up with to excuse the fact that he missed the girl. There were few people in his life who ever absorbed the incessant ramblings of his depressive outlook with perfect attention, and Maya was one of those people. Elektra would listen but never respond, in the way he could talk to a reflection on the mirror that could never speak back to him. Anyway, she had distanced herself much too far from his heart to be any source of comfort to him anymore. And Foggy... Foggy would listen but respond right on back, sometimes with too much information. Natasha would lecture him... Karen would patronize him... What Matt needed right now was to be in the presence of someone who was just like him. Who could understand him. Who was lonely like him. Shooting his grapple onto the roof edge of her building, Daredevil recoiled the cable and was jettisoned back into the air. Complex aerial maneuvers ended in a triple twist until a heavy thud on concrete announced his arrival. His landing was in perfect alignment to the woman in front of him, his figure low and crouching, his boots absorbing the fall. There was a click of metal, and the serrated hooks on his billy club swiftly disappeared back inside the handle as Matthew stood up to survey Maya in meditation. 

ECHO For once, the night's vibrations made her a promise. A promise that she wasn't by herself on this cold rooftop. Would it follow through if she opened her eyes? She'd been let down by her senses before - sometimes a flutter of pigeon wings could feel like leather brushing against leather. Sometimes a pan dropped into a sink nearby reverberated with the same frequency as a grappling hook catching a fire escape. What would that thump of rubber soles against the concrete turn out to be if she left the haven of blindness? She had a brief flash of resentment for the night and all its false hopes. It played games with someone who wasn't entirely stable enough to be played with. A bitter expression crossed her dusky Native features and she opened her eyes, just to spite the trickery. When the dim light of the world filtered back into her recognition, one thing stayed the same. Maya closed her eyes, and opened them again. That crouched figure was still there. She sat up quickly. The night had come through for her. "Matt?" Maya asked, watching the figure's face intently. Her words were no indication of her handicap. She spoke precisely, clearly. Minute control of her muscles allowed that luxury. After the longest months, there was hope on her gaze. 

DAREDEVIL There was recognition in the girl's voice, and for that, Matt was relieved. "Past midnight," he replied by way of greeting, strolling closer to her where his senses had directed him. The brief sound of serrated metal scrapping against the housing of his billy club was enough to project sound waves and determine her location. "Not an early sleeper?" He should know. He had kept her awake a number of times before in bed. But that was nearly eight months ago, back when he was still innocent of all the accusations she had thrown at him in light of her involvement with Wilson Fisk. Not wanting to appear hostile to the young woman, Matt peeled the mask from his eyes and advanced until a comfortable length of distance was established between them. After all, this was the same girl who once tried to kill him and nearly...very nearly, succeeded. Matt lent the silence between them a bit of his own musing as his gaze adjusted to her presence. It might not have been perfectly centered on her face, but his attention was on her. There was an awkward beat. He smiled the greeting of a man who just wanted to be heard, a man who meant her no harm, who wasn't the bad guy. "Hi, Maya..." The casualty in his tone was fake, but Maya couldn't tell the difference. He spoke to her as though she could hear. 

ECHO Score one for the night. She stretched idly, at once relaxed in his presence. Matt was a comforting person to be around. "No one has ever proven scientifically that sleep is required for the body to function," she replied. "Besides, I have a problem with alarm clocks." Rueful humor. For someone who couldn't even hear herself, she seemed to inject the exact amount of wryness into her words to bring around a chuckle from most people. She remembered making Matt laugh. She'd had to hold her hand on his shoulder to feel the rumble of it, but he had a handsome smile. One she'd never forgotten. There was nothing more than a sense of deep friendship in her touch when she reached for his hand and led him to sit by her. It was true she loved Matt. But his heart was elsewhere, and she'd come to accept that over eight months. His companionship was good enough for her. "How've you been, Matt?" She watched his lips expectantly, smiling at just the cant of them, posed in a perpetual expression of solemnity.

DAREDEVIL offered a side smirk, the only reaction he ever employed when amused. For a guy who had to wash away someone else's blood beneath his fingertips on a nightly basis, Matt wasn't the laughing type. Milky blue eyes were cast skyward, listening with one ear pointed towards his audience. A blind man's habit. Sensual, almost, in its reverence. She sounded different to him tonight; calm, immovable. Grown up. It upset him to wonder if he had been the reason she changed so outwardly over the months since he last saw her. Matt had been the source of her frustration for a time... No, it had been much more serious than that... She genuinely had an interest in killing him once. But as he struggled to separate her heartbeat from the rest of Hell's Kitchen, Matt detected only the nervousness of a young woman who seemed anxious to see an old lover. That worried him, too. The girl's feelings. They were still indistinct from the way she felt about him before. When they were in love. Daredevil, not Matt, revolved the billy club in his hand, weaving it down a complicated path through his fingers. "I'm on my tenth alarm clock," he humored dryly, though it was no joke that Matt took to beating his errant snooze button on some mornings with the same well-placed violence he dished out upon nightly scum. 

DAREDEVIL sobered then quite suddenly and set his jaw to an angry clamp. "Alive," he continued. "Wishing I -was- asleep instead of spending my Saturday thinking about the Roscoe VS. Lenore case I've been smothered in." Come to think of it, Matt's health had never been the same since his foray into crime fighting began. The pressures in the courtroom was enough to tax his mental reserves, but to consider his night life? "Swung by your block... Wanted to check up on you..." Despite the frailty of his words, Matt took to his reply with a look of supreme confidence and machismo. If Maya knew him well enough -- which she didn't -- she would have realized that Matt was often a one-man teleprompter. He often did things that were beyond his reasoning, that could be considered slightly neurotic... But since when did anyone need a reason to pay an old friend a visit? It was then, Matt wondered, if he even meant anything anymore to the girl. "You look good," he added, teasingly. He was blatantly lying, but grinned absolvingly. She'd appreciate the joke. 

ECHO chuckled, a gentle sound, at the reply she read on his lips. If Matt knew her well enough - which he didn't - he'd have realized that she could tell what sort of emotion went into his words just by the way in which he spoke. She saw through bravado the way he could hear a lie in her heartbeat. Perhaps they knew more about each other than they thought. "I appreciate that," Maya answered, and there was every ounce of sincerity in her words. It helped to know she wasn't forgotten. Voluntarily exile from seeing him over the past eight months was something she could make herself do because she honestly felt like she'd done the man a terrible injustice. She didn't think she could be forgiven. She'd almost taken his life. And there was no one less deserving of that fate than Matthew Murdock. Closing her eyes, Maya leaned back slightly, enjoying the rush of air that tried to dissuade her from freefalling backwards off the ledge, only to collect herself into a position she'd learned from watching Daredevil himself and landed safely below. That lure was another of the night's games. In reference to his joke, she smiled winningly. "It's nice to hear your voice again." A tease in kind. Maya fell silent. She missed that banter between them. Unbidden, the memory of seeing a movie together (an exercise in futility, but fun nonetheless) traipsed through her mind. He'd tell her what was being said if she couldn't read the lips onscreen, and she'd describe the sights to him. If he asked her, she'd admit that she missed him. If he wondered, he still meant everything to her. She had to ask herself, though, if she'd in fact ever meant anything to him. A long line of women went before her in Matthew's heart. "There're no stars tonight," Maya reported to him wistfully, out of habit. 

DAREDEVIL sighed heavily, not out of irritation but in agreement. "I know," Matt replied. His tone bore no insult or mockery, but an explanation was still needed. "Listened to the weather forecast this morning. Said it was going to be clear until midnight and then there would be a rainstorm by dawn. Clouds are out." Matt inhaled the air and found no traces of sweet moisture that usually precipitated a shower. He made it his life's work to be sensitive to his environment at all times, investing all of his training on sharpening his remaining senses. Not unlike how she had been honed her talents at mimickery and adapted to the world around her. Matt once marveled at how excellent that talent of hers really was, was even subject to a personal demonstration. Besides his books, the lawyer had kept abreast of kinetics, the science of movement, and several other laws of motion in college. He obsessed over them, in fact. Given that, Echo had a tremendous sense of balance even without her sense of hearing, which greatly assisted in keeping normal folk centered. Hell, she had better balance than most people. She boxed. She danced. She kicked his ass. "Do you believe in forgiving people for anything," Matt continued quietly, his 'gaze' fixed in front of him, "No matter how crazy and fucked up they were in the past?" He had been paid an unexpected visit by an old friend last night. A visit that had completely disoriented everything he ever knew about that woman... Despite his faith in Catholicism and forgiveness, Matt believed that everyone would be judged eventually, one way or the other. He had to make sure there was still hope in saving Elektra... 

ECHO watched his lips intently to discern what he'd asked her. It made her smile softly - a smile that could be heard in her words. "Who are you trying to save this time, Matthew?" There was only an affectionate appreciation of his crusades to look after the people he cared about. Honey-brown eyes flicked off his face when he said nothing more, and she offered her own sigh. "There's always room for forgiveness if you love someone enough," Maya added. But then she thought further on that and continued. "But then... if you love -her- enough, not forgiving her would be unthinkable and you wouldn't be asking me this question." It seemed Maya was more observant than she let on sometimes. She picked up on nuances in his speech that told her who he was speaking of, even if she couldn't hear the desperate hope in his voice. Crossing her legs beneath her, she once again settled her gaze on his features and waited. She knew that, given the encouragement that forgiveness was in fact possible, Matt could make this woman he spoke of very happy.

DAREDEVIL went into conference with his heart a moment. "Her name's Elektra and I'm most certainly not in love with her." Anymore, anyway. He spoke the plaintive truth, at that, even if it came across as an arrogant and defensive response. Besides, Maya of all people must have been aware that Matt had no interest in lying to anyone but himself these days... Daredevil was becoming a joke in the papers. Matt Murdock was being put in the ranks next to serial murderers. There was no easier way to put it - his responsibilities were pissing him off. And then, Elektra's sudden arrival... Her equally mysterious exit... Why was he such a pussy when it came to dealing with women? "I don't know anymore," Matt went on, leaning back against the cool grated wall of the apartment thermos room. "I just dunno..." Forgiveness had always been something that was difficult for Matt. A man loses patience -quick- after seeing so many of his loved ones die. "Sinning is like entering the ring. Sometimes you hit a knockout and you're free to go. Sometimes your glove slips and you get a quick leftie to the nose and suddenly you're on your ass with no one to pick you up." Now he was rambling. Echo had nothing to do with his past, at least not so far down that road. She was too young. "I'm still angry at her, but I don't want that to happen to her..." Matt shut up just long enough to-- "We've got about two minutes before it rains." 

ECHO listened with that perfect attention he'd come to her for. As he'd suspected, Maya had matured somewhat over the past months. She was now in charge of her own life with neither her father or Wilson Fisk to look after her. Sure, some things had been provided for her - the chic loft she lived in had been courtesy of the Kingpin's fortune, and so had her own bank account. But on the whole, she woke up when she felt like it, ate what she wanted. Worked when she needed to. Freedom and control had come to a graceful balance in her life. She was doing alright. It was even visible outwardly - she was more poised now than she had been, if that was possible. She moved with the indistinct purpose of a dancer. In this newfound maturity, Maya ingested his concerns where before she might have spoken quickly, and for her own purposes. One of their two minutes passed, and she hadn't risen from her meditative pose. It seemed she wasn't overly concerned about the rain. "And sometimes, Matt, you have to stop thinking about things in the context of religion and ask yourself if you can look at her and see anything but what she's done in the past. Faith is faith. Whether her soul can be saved is up to God alone. What you need to worry about is her heart. And her mind." When even she could feel the physical harbingers of rain, she stood and stretched. "Come inside," Maya invited. "I left dinner on the stove. I never like eating alone." 

DAREDEVIL responded evenly, "I don't care to look at the situation, or the world for that matter, any other way." It was Matt sticking up for himself, sticking up for the faith that he had so zealously observed all his life. To always be right (or to always -think- he was right) was a curse, like all the women who had entered his life and tried to change him. Matt Murdock was a man stuck in his beliefs -- no one on this earth could ever succeed at changing someone who was already way too angry to listen. Sure, he was once hurt by God for taking his father taken away from him, but Matt stayed with the church in order to belong somewhere, in order to give his frustration a place to settle. He realized it wasn't God who killed his dad. God was not a murderer. Matt needed to believe this. He needed to believe that there was someone above his father's killers, who could explain what science and the law could not, who would punish those who -did- take his dad away from him. Sacred Heart Parish was the only place Matt had ever felt at home in after he lost his last remaining relative. All the ministers there were good to him. Told him not to hate. To be forgiving. But no matter how many sermons Matt had attended, no matter how dependent he became on the charity and goodness of the preachers, the boy went on to believe that Hell was not enough of a punishment for some criminals. Judgment by God seemed to him the only satisfying penalty and that sometimes, it was up to the individual to speed up that process. This is what Maya didn't seem to understand. Matt was afraid that Elektra would end up like one of the many criminals whose souls he had sentenced to Hell as Daredevil. He realized, even after this conversation, that he still couldn't confirm whether or not Elektra was truly a doomed soul. Only time would tell, but if Elektra wanted to change, she had to be -serious- with herself. She needed to stop running away. Matthew stood, gesturing over the side of the building instead of following the girl. "No, thank you," he declined. "I think I've disturbed you long enough." Matt left no room for a response and continued to climb onto the ramparts as the rain began to fell. "But you're right. I've been worrying about the wrong side of her. It's not even my place to even care about her soul anymore." The hood was replaced back over his eyes and tucked beneath the collar of his leather jacket. "Goodnight, Maya. I'll be expecting you at the office one of these days. We'll do lunch or something. I'll treat you real nice." He might have been trying to be friendly, he might have been earnest, but as Daredevil's figure turned away from her and fell over the roof edge with his cables trailing behind him, one thing was for certain: the Man Without Fear was slowly arriving to the point where he was tired of giving a shit about anybody in this city. 

To be continued.

We promise.

Disclaimer: Story copyright 2003 kabanas and FataMorgana. Daredevil/Echo copyright Marvel.


End file.
